does cosleeping cause bad sleepers? - Page 2

[Viola]

I coslept with both of mine, and I had one "good" sleeper and one "bad" one. Not horrible, but not one who would sleep in long stretches, and who had a hard time falling asleep. She's a pretty decent sleeper now, however. She just doesn't seem to need as much sleep as her sister.

[Wild Lupine]

We had a lot of sleep challenges with our cosleeping DD- early waking, lots of night waking, long time to get to sleep, etc...

HOWEVER, she has never, ever resisted bed time. In fact, she kinda looks forward to it. Even when she was going through a phase of taking a long time to get to sleep, she still loved bed time and went through the bed time routine joyfully.

And now at age three she falls asleep in ten minutes, after we read her a story, and sleeps solidly for 13 hours. She does usually come into our room in the middle of the night and sleep in the toddler bed we have for her there, but we often don't even know she has come through until morning she does it so quietly.

I consider her a great sleeper now and I credit the cosleeping.

[prothyraia]

My two have coslept since birth. My first was terrible for night waking, but sleeps through the night now at 3 years old. My second is 16 months old and I can count on one hand the number of times since birth we've had to wake up in the middle of the night to deal with him. : I think it's all about the child and his/her temperament.

[Equuskia]

Also remember that there is bedsharing, which is a form of co sleeping, and co sleeping in general, which isn't only limited to bedsharing. Bed sharing is....sharing the bed Cosleeping can include a cradle or crib in the room, a crib sidecarred to the bed or one of those "arm's reach" beds. There are some babies that are too simulated when sleeping next to mom, and need their own surface, but I firmly believe (and the AAP even says so, surprisingly enough), that infants should sleep in the same room as their parents.

[MommaSuzi]

we Bed-shared with our DD from birth, and I remember at around 16-18 months having many nights where she was awake to nurse 8-10 times a night. I did end up encouraging use of a Binky at night while we snuggled because I work full time out of the house and was simply too exhausted. But we did continue with bed-sharing and she gradually got much better about sleeping through the night. Now, at 3.5, she sleeps in her own room at the beginning of the night. A few nights a week she quietly comes and joins me in bed but other nights we don't hear a peep from her until it's time to get up in the morning. So not sleeping well at 9 or 18 months doesn't necessarily equate to being a "poor sleeper" later on

[major_mama11]

I agree that each kid is different. I don't think crappy sleeping is caused by cosleeping, although some kids do better in their own space. I think parents of crappy sleepers are more likely to share a bed with their kids, out of desperation for sleep, though, so that probably skews things!

We coslept with DD from birth, and she was a horrible sleeper (we couldn't lay her down to sleep without us even when we tried, until she was a toddler). However, she became a much better sleeper around age 2.5, and now at age 4, she has been sleeping in her own bed for a couple months (her idea), with no problems. She is a pretty awesome sleeper these days.

DS, 6 mos, starts out in his own crib in our room, and then stays in bed by me after he night-feeds. He is generally a much better sleeper than DD was at this age (he only wakes 2-3 times to nurse, rather than constant nursing), but I think this is due to his being a lower-needs baby than she was, not because he co-sleeps less than she did.

[Just1More]

We co-sleep, and my kids sleep great. we went through rough-patches, though.

As far as waking up a lot, with my dd around 18-20 months, I slowly night-weaned her and that helped A LOT. Turned out, she wasn't waking up to nurse because she was hungry. She told me she was thirsty! So, I started taking a sippy cup to bed with us and she stopped needing me near so much.

[bettyjones]

Originally Posted by beingmommy

I think it is definitely a personality thing. HOWEVER, I wish I could find a book about co-sleeping written by someone who had a bad sleeper! .

Try the no cry sleep solution

[BunniMummi]

Another one checking in with 1 bad and 1 good sleeper. We ended up co-sleeping with DS1 not because it was some parenting choice we made ahead of time. It was just the only way anyone got any sleep, from night 1 (fortunately in Norway cosleeping is ok in the hospital so long as you aren't medicated or super exhausted after birth). DS2 has had all the same opportunities to co-sleep than DS1 did but generally sleeps through the night in his own bed by choice and has almost since he had the option from around 1-1.5 I think. Meanwhine I can count on one hand the number of times a month that DS1 wakes up in his own bed at anything I would call "morning". He hated sleeping with a passion, screamed in cars, screamed in the carriage, dropped naps as soon as possible.

I knew from birth that DS2 was a different kind of sleeper, because all the mainstream advice I had heard with DS1 suddenly made sense. When all I had was DS1 I just thought everyone was off their rocker when they said things like "Put him down while he is still slightly awake". I've made no particular attempt to make DS2 a more independant sleeper, if anything he has convinced me that for however much influence I have over their development a lot of it is just luck of the draw with their temperments.

[mambera]

A search for 'cosleeping' on PubMed brings up lots of articles saying that cosleeping children have more sleep problems.

However I suspect that that may be because Western parents often plan to use a crib and then go to cosleeping as sort of a forced run if they have a 'problem sleeper.'

I found a couple of cross-cultural studies from places where cosleeping is more prevalent (eg Japan) and in those places, cosleeping was *not* associated with sleep difficulties; moreover, the groups of kids that were 'problem sleepers' still had fewer night wakings than the Western 'problem sleepers.'

[HappilyEvrAfter]

ITA that it depends on the child themselves.

Mine didn't start sleeping through the night until around the time we started co-sleeping. Not sure if it was something magical that happened around the time he turned two, because ex moved out or because of the co-sleeping (too many variables happened at once), but I haven't had a problem with him sleeping through the night for the past 3 years and we still co-sleep.

OTOH, I have three little sisters (7, 6, 4) who all have different sleep patterns even though they were all raised on the "at 1 you're in your own room" principle. One is a wonderful independant sleeper, one is a "won't go down till midnight", and one is a "get in the bed with mom/dad in the middle of the night" girl. The only major variable in their house is that they moved two streets over once...other than that their life has been unchanged.

I dunno. I think, if you have a crappy sleeper then you change individual variables until you get the result that works for their particular sleep rhythm. Sometimes that means co-sleeping works, sometimes that means everyone needs their own bed.

[coraljean]

Just wanted to chime in that I co-slept with my mom well into elementary school, and my husband slept in a crib in his own room, and I am actually the much better sleeper of the two of us. If something wakes me I can always go back to sleep, whereas he is disturbed by small noises or anything and then has a very hard time getting back to sleep and is cranky the next day. SO, in my case the end result of co-sleeping was good! I also wonder if those of us who co-sleep are maybe more aware of when our little ones are restless because we are right there, and maybe the babies in their cribs are really just as restless a lot of the time.

Coral Jean
Mama to Dylan 12/20/08

[the_lissa]

Not ime.

[paxye]

My three are all excellent sleepers...

We don't own a crib and we have never thought babies should not be with their parents so there has never been any stress about sleep... I firmly believe that that in itself helps make a good sleeper...

[sapphire_chan]

We've co-slept from day one and Lina's a great sleeper. If we didn't co-sleep I'd think she was a lousy sleeper since she sleep-nurses a large portion of the night, but since I don't have to lose any sleep over it, I don't care.

[CheriK]

I think sleep is a myth

Seriously, look at the # of books on infant/toddler/child sleep the next time you're at amazon.com or your local bookstore. If most children slept well most of the time, then those books wouldn't be there. And the majority of our society ain't cosleeping.

I do think that mainstream parents don't talk about their children's sleep problems as much, maybe because they think that they're supposed to have "trained" their child to sleep already. I also think that parents who believe in early sleep independence have trained themselves to ignore waking/noise that we would react to pretty quickly.

I think it's normal for babies to sleep next to mom and to wake frequently to eat. It's probably normal well into toddlerhood. Folks like James McKenna show research that supports this.

I think as children get older, it's personality and genetics as much as anything else. We've coslept with all our children since birth. We currently have a family bedroom with a king and a twin pushed together. DD#1 "gets" the twin to herself because she's in non-stop motion, even while asleep (one of those kicking perpendicular sleepers some others have). But she's never awake while flailing around and talking aloud. DD#1, DS, and DH are all night owls. But getting them up before 8 am - ugh! DD#2 and I would happily be in bed at 8 and up at dawn. DS and I are both lousy sleepers. It takes us forever to fall asleep, we wake frequently, we get insomnia. But DS is like a log when actually asleep. DD and DH fall asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.

DH and I both slept in cribs. DH was sleep trained from an early age. I was welcomed in my parents bed when I needed an adult at night. He and I have very different sleep patterns. But we've DONE the same for all our children. . .and some of them are like one of us, some like the other.